“I won’t let it slip away,” I said, as much to the photo as to myself. I had managed to get away and become somebody, and no way I was going back. That lost Bayonne boy was going to stay lost, and I wasn’t going to resurrect him. “I’ll get the truth,” I said, nodding at the mug shot, believing it for the first time. “No matter what!”

11

John Smith reviewed the dossiers he had transferred to his phone: one on the American and another on the Italian professors—the late Antonio Guggliermo and his younger lover, Luigi Quattrocchi, along with the emails between Quattrocchi and Perrone. He put the cell phone down and sat back, taking in the bedroom and small sitting room he would be using as his temporary base of operations. The hotel was far from deluxe, but he’d never cared for luxuries, always found them unnecessary, even frivolous. He pictured his Lyon apartment, sparsely furnished and spotlessly clean. As a kid, he’d imagined an exciting life beyond the projects, and though he’d made it out, enough of a feat, excitement had eluded him. Until now.

Tired but keyed up, he dropped to the floor and did a set of one-armed push-ups until he felt awake, determined. Breathing hard, he was up fast. Ignoring the Smoke-Free sign, he lit a cigarette, opened a window, and angled his muscular torso half outside.

You do your work well, Smith, but you do not go the extra yard, do not make the sacrifices.

A work review from his arrogant Danish supervisor, Andersen, only a week ago. A man who had been at the job less than three years, who enjoyed telling his subordinates and anyone who would listen that his name derived from the English Andrew, and that it meant manly and masculine. Not so Smith ever noticed.

Sacrifices? Apparently long nights and weekends didn’t count. This job was his life; didn’t Andersen know that?

He dragged hard on his cigarette, watched the smoke break up and disappear.

Of course he knew what his supervisor meant—that he had not been instrumental in solving cases. Unlike analysts who had not only tracked a missing artwork but whose data resulted in an actual arrest and return.

And you do not play well with others.

That really got to him. Smith imagined punching the guy, watching blood trickle over his pale-blond mustache and weak chin.

He would show his supervisor, the others too, would prove he could not only go the distance but a lot further, do whatever was necessary, whatever it took. After twenty years as a criminal intelligence analyst, he had an instinct for when he was onto something, and he had that feeling now.

Another deep drag, the smoke held in his lungs until they ached.

As far as INTERPOL knew, he was on sick leave (minor surgery, nothing serious, though he needed a week or so to recuperate), a surprise to his colleagues as he had never taken a sick day in his entire career. No room for failure, he thought. To fail now would be the end of his career, and that was not going to happen. He had made his decision, and there was no going back.